1  ^ 


6^ 


\L    REPORT 


OF    THE 


ANTE   SOCIETY 

(CAMBRIDGE, 
1903 


ACCOMPANYING    PAPERS 
t^^    The  Concordan'Ce  to  Dante's  Minor  Italian  Works 

-^v^yUS.  F/ftilwr 


lalifornia 

gional 

nlity 


BOSTON 
GINN   &   COMPANY 

HE  DANTE   ;     . 
1904 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

ELI  SOBEL 


v^c  \  ^6oi^m^ 


THE  CONCORDANCE  TO   DANTE'S  MINOR 
ITALIAN  WORKS 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Dante  Society  in  May,  1902,  it  was  reported 
that  the  cards  for  the  Concordance  intended  to  cover  all  the  Italian 
works  of  Dante  except  the  Divina  Comtnedia  were  at  last  practically 
complete,  and  accordingly  the  question  of  editing  and  publishing  the 
work  came  up.  After  some  discussion  a  committee,  consisting  of 
Professor  Grandgent,  Mr.  L.  E.  Taylor,  and  the  undersigned  as 
chairman,  was  appointed  to  take  charge  of  this  matter. 

The  committee  first  endeavored  to  secure  an  editor  or  editors  to 
prepare  the  cards  for  the  printer.  The  result  was  that  the  chairman 
undertook  this  task  with  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Alain  C.  White,  whose 
interest  in  Dante  studies  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  his  work  on  the 
Qnaestio  de  Aqua  et  Terra  published  in  the  Twenty-First  Report. 
Although  he  had  made  other  plans  Mr.  White  kindly  consented  to 
devote  considerable  time  to  the  Concordance,  and  it  may  be  said 
here  that  his  assistance  has  been  of  great  value,  his  work  being 
marked  by  a  high  degree  of  rapidity  combined  with  conscientious 
thoroughness. 

The  details  of  the  editing  were  settled  partly  by  conference  in 
Cambridge  and  joint  work  on  the  first  few  pages  of  the  Convivio 
in  September,  1902,  and  partly  by  correspondence  and  occasional 
meetings  in  Cambridge  after  the  work  had  been  Well  begun.  The 
printed  Rules  used  by  the  many  different  persons  who  had  written 
the  cards  were  followed  in  general,  but  it  was  found  expedient  to 
make  a  few  changes  in  them  and  to  provide  for  some  additional 
matters.  For  instance,  a  change  in  punctuation  was  made  which 
involved  alteration  of  every  card,  the  resulting  gain  in  clearness 
seeming  to  make  it  desirable.  This  change  consisted  in  restricting 
the  use  of  commas  in  the  references  to  separating  different  line  num- 
bers in  the  same  poem  or  chapter,  a  period  being  used  instead  of  a 


2  THE   CONCORDANCE   TO  DANTE'S 

comma  to  separate  the  chapter  number  from  the  line  number;  as, 
V.  iV;  36.  13  (instead  of  36,  13) ;  C.  iv.  i.  74,  87  (instead  of  i,  74, 
87).  In  the  references  to  the  poems  in  the  Vita  Nuova  it  seemed 
best  to  give  the  number  of  the  line  in  the  poem  as  well  as  its  number 
in  the  chapter  of  which  the  poem  is  a  part.  TJius,  for  invidia  occurs 
the  reference  V.  N.  27.  18  {Son.  xvi.  6),  When  the  same  passage 
occurred  in  different  places  with  some  slight  difference  and  these 
occurrences  were  put  on  the  same  card,  brackets  were  used  to  show 
the  difference ;  the  words  enclosed  in  brackets  do  not  occur  in  all 
the  passages  referred  to.  Variant  readings  are  in  parentheses.  A 
number  of  additions  were  made  to  the  list  of  words  for  which  refer- 
ences only,  without  quotation  of  the  context,  are  given.  A  very  few 
additions  were  made  to  the  list  of  words  omitted  altogether,  and  that 
list  now  comprises  azwi?  and  essere  in  all  their  verbal  forms  (but 
their  infinitives  when  used  as  nouns  are  entered  without  quotations), 
ci,  che  (in  all  senses)  and  che,  c/ii,  cui,  e,  ?na,  tie,  tie,  tion,  0  (conj.), 
questo,  quello  (but  the  singular  forms  questi,  quegli,  etc.,  are  included, 
as  are  costui,  colui,  costei,  colei,  costoro,  coloro,  but  without  quotations), 
se  (conj.),  se,  si,  vi;  further,  the  articles,  prepositions  of  one  syllable, 
whether  with  or  without  the  article  in  combination,  and  all  regular 
forms  of  the  personal  pronouns  and  possessive  adjjectives  (under  this 
rule  egli,  e',  ei  were  omitted  except  when  they  occur  as  plural  forms). 
The  exceptional  forms  to  be  entered  were  put  in  their  proper  alpha- 
betical places,  but  in  general  the  words  are,  as  was  directed  in  the 
Rules,  entered  as  they  would  naturally  be  in  dictionaries ;  verbs,  for 
example,  stand  under  the  infinitive  form. 

The  omission  of  certain  words  not  included  in  the  list  just  given 
was  not  finally  determined  on  until  a  comparatively  late  day.  Dante's 
vocabulary,  as  seen  in  his  works,  comprises  not  only  Italian  words 
in  the  ordinary  sense  but  also  some  specimens  of  different  Italian 
dialects  contained  in  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquentia,  a  few  Greek  words, 
spelt  as  they  might  be  expected  to  be  spelt  in  his  time,  a  number  of 
Latin  words,  and  also  some  Proven9al  words.  Of  these  the  words 
contained  in  the  De  Viilgati  Eloquetitia  were  not  at  first  included, 
but  such  of  them  as  are  in  quotations  from  Dante's  own  Italian 
writings  have  now  been  entered.  Quotations  from  other  Italian 
poets,  whether  in  that  Latin  work  or  in   Dante's  Italian  works,  have 


MINOR  ITALIAN  WORKS  3 

been  omitted.  The  same  rule  has  been  applied  to  Latin  words, — 
those  occurring  in  obvious  quotations  not  being  listed.  So,  too,  the 
final  Latin  words  in  the  Vita  Nuova  have  been  omitted.  But  when 
the  Latin  words  found  in  the  Italian  works  appear  to  be  Dante's 
own,  especially  when  they  are  an  integral  part  of  an  Italian  sentence, 
it  seems  best  to  include  them,  and  this  has  been  done.  (They  might 
also  appear  in  a  Concordance  to  Dante's  Latin  works,  and  this 
double  entry,  since  their  number  is  small  and  they  are  likely  to  be 
looked  for  in  either  work,  can  hardly  be  thought  improper.)  This 
applies,  for  instance,  to  the  Latin  words  in  that  poem  {Canz.  xxi) 
which  is  written  in  three  languages,  —  Italian,  Latin,  and  Provencal. 
But  the  Provencal  words  in  that  poem  have  not  been  included.  The 
reason  for  this  inconsistency  is  the  unsatisfactory  state  of  the  text. 
Since  everybody  knows  where  to  find  the  lines  the  omission  can  do 
no  great  harm.  No  one  will  object  to  the  inclusion  of  the  few 
Greek  words,  whatever  opinion  may  be  held  about  Dante's  knowl- 
edge of  Greek. 

After  the  first  few  days  of  working  in  Cambridge  it  was  found 
possible  to  arrange  a  plan  which  could  be  followed  until  the  revision 
was  completed.  A  first  revision  was  made  in  New  York  by  Mr. 
White,  who  went  over  the  whole  of  the  cards  with  the  text  before 
him,  supplying  omissions,  rejecting  cards  which  were  for  any  reason 
unsuitable,  rewriting  whenever  necessary,  and  scrutinizing  every 
card  which  was  retained.  The  cards  thus  revised  were  from  time  to 
time  sent  to  Cambridge  for  a  second  revision,  in  which,  as  in  the 
first,  nothing  was  taken  for  granted.  They  were  sent  to  New  York 
again,  a  few  thousand  at  a  time,  where  the  prose  and  the  verse  cards 
were  arranged  in  alphabetical  order. 

The  constant  interest  of  the  President  of  the  Society  was  often 
and  actively  shown,  and  the  arrangement  of  the  material  —  to  men- 
tion a  single  feature  of  the  work  —  is  due  in  great  part  to  his  wise 
counsel.  He  attached  much  importance  to  a  separation  of  the  prose 
and  the  verse  parts  of  the  Concordance,  and  in  order  to  combine 
this  desirable  object  with  ease  of  comparison  of  the  prose  usage  and 
the  verse  usage  of  the  poet  it  was  finally  decided  that  the  best  plan 
would  be  to  print  the  verse  and  the  prose  so  that  the  one  should 
occupy  the  upper  part  of  the  page  and  the  other  the  lower  part. 


4  THE  CONCORDANCE   TO  DANTE'S 

Messrs.  Ginn  &  Company  kindly  printed  for  us  three  specimen  pages 
without  charge,  and  these,  together  with  comparisons  of  prose  and 
verse  words  in  many  different  places,  make  this  plan  of  arranging 
the  material  appear  quite  feasible.  Its  obvious  advantages  recom- 
mend it  strongly. 

The  preparation  of  the  cards  for  printing  was  practically  finished 
before  the  end  of  the  calendar  year  1903,  though  the  cards  were 
afterward  numbered  by  Mr.  White  and  a  few  changes  were  made  in 
the  present  year.  Through  Professor  Norton  and  Dr.  Moore,  the 
editor  of  the  Oxford  Dante,  the  plan  was  brought  to  the  notice  of 
the  Delegates  of  the  Clarendon  Press,  and  in  a  letter  to  Professor 
Norton  was  expressed  their  willingness  to  print  the  Concordance, 
The  manuscript  was  sent  to  Oxford  about  the  end  of  March  and 
notice  of  its  receipt  came  before  the  end  of  April.  The  terms  sug- 
gested for  the  publication  by  the  Clarendon  Press  are  very  satis- 
factory, being  much  more  liberal  than  it  had  appeared  possible  to 
obtain  in  this  country.  A  member  of  the  Society  had  already  gen- 
erously offered  to  be  responsible  for  the  money  needed  for  the 
publication. 

Some  further  information  about  the  Concordance,  including  some 
approximate  figures,  may  be  in  place  here. 

I.  Size  of  the  Book.  —  By  the  omissions  mentioned  above  and  by 
keeping  the  mention  of  variant  readings  within  very  narrow  limits  it 
has  been  made  possible,  it  is  believed,  to  prevent  the  whole  from 
occupying  much  more  space  than  is  taken  by  Professor  Fay's  corre- 
sponding work  for  the  Divina  Commedia.  All  the  Italian  verse  in  the 
Oxford  Datite  —  other  than  the  Divina  Commedia  —  is  included  (with 
the  few  exceptions  noted  above),  as  well  as  some  additional  sonnets 
expected  to  appear  in  the  third  edition  of  that  book.  The  total 
number  of  cards  is  44,495  (the  additional  sonnets  will  cause  an 
increase  of  163,  making  in  all  44,658),  but  a  certain  number  of  these 
contain  more  than  the  equivalent  of  one  printed  line  each,  while  on 
the  other  hand  sometimes  one  card  may  be  combined  with  one  or 
more  others  to  make  a  single  line.  Allowance  must  also  be  made 
for  a  number  of  cross  references.  It  is  thought  that  the  whole, 
inclusive  of  the  necessary  prefatory  explanations,  will  not  exceed 
•m«e  hundred  pages  of  the  size  seen  in  Professor  Fay's  Concordance. 


MINOR  ITALIAN  WORKS  5 

It  is  intended  to  insert  in  the  preface  a  comparative  table  exhibiting 
the  differences  in  arrangement  of  the  poems  of  the  Canzoniere  in 
other  editions. 

2.  Arrangement  of  Quotations  and  References.  —  The  Canzofii  come 
first  in  the  verse,  and  among  them  those  in  the  Vita  Nuova  take  the 
first  place,  follo"wed  by  those  in  the  Convivio,  the  other  Canzoni 
coming  last  in  this  group.  Next  come  the  Sestine,  then  the  Ballatc 
(beginning  with  the  one  in  the  Vita  Nuova),  then  the  Sonetti  (those 
in  the  Vita  Nuova  preceding  the  others),  then  the  Sette  Salmi  Peni- 
tenziali,  and  finally  the  Professione  di  Fede.  For  the  prose  the  quota- 
tions from  the  Vita  Nuova  precede  those  from  the  Convivio.  Within 
these  various  divisions  the  quotations  are  arranged  in  the  order  of 
the  text  except  when  a  passage  is  anticipated  because  it  is  nearly  or 
quite  identical  with  one  occurring  earlier  and  is  combined  with  that 
on  one  card. 

3.  Variant  Readings  and  Doubtful  Questions.  —  Only  a  few  variant 
readings  have  been  admitted,  the  general  principle  being  to  admit 
such  only  when  the  text  of  the  Oxford  edition  seemed  so  difficult  if 
not  even  impossible  that  it  was  necessary  to  do  so.  In  some  cases 
where  the  question  was  one  of  punctuation  the  passage  quoted  (as  in 
that  edition)  was  yet  so  given  as  at  least  to  suggest  the  possibility 
of  a  different  punctuation  and  interpretation  (cf.  Canz.  x.  150). 

In  some  more  or  less  difficult  passages  a  decision  had  to  be  made 
before  a  certain  word  could  be  entered  according  to  the  general  plan 
followed.  It  is  believed  that  everything  can  be  easily  found,  though 
it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  every  one  will  agree  with  the  decision 
made  in  this  or  that  case.  Thus,  intaito  in  K  iV!  19.  94  is  entered 
as  a  noun,  not  as  a  participle,  and  the  following  word,  tmttato, 
is  taken  as  a  participle  and  put  under  tratta/r,  not  as  a  noun.  The 
word  altri  is  sometimes  a  singular  pronoun,  but  in  some  cases  it  may 
also  be  taken  as  the  plural  of  altro.  The  references  for  altro  must 
be  supplemented,  in  order  to  cover  all  doubtful  cases,  by  consulting 
also  altri,  and  vice  versa.  So,  too,  those  for  cio  are  not  absolutely 
complete  without  inclusion  of  cioe,  conciofossccosache,  etc.,  and  a  similar 
thing  may  be  said  of  secondo  (prep.)  and  secondoc/ie,  avvenire  and 
avvegnache.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  say  at  once  whether  uno  is  the 
indefinite  article    (which  is  not  included)  or  the  numeral.     Under 


6  THE  CONCORDANCE   TO  DANTE'S 

bene  the  adverb  and  the  noun  are  not  distinguished  and  the  same  is 
true  of  male ;  and  under  solo  no  distinction  is  made  between  the  use 
as  adjective  and  that  as  adverb.  In  many  cases  Professor  Grand- 
gent's  opinion  was  asked  and  it  was  freely  given  whenever  asked, 
though  the  demands  thus  made  on  his  time  alone  were  not  incon- 
siderable. But  he  is  not  to  be  held  responsible  for  any  decisions 
taken. 

4.  Cross  References These  have  been  introduced  to  a  consider- 
able extent.  The  many  different  forms  of  words,  as  core  and  ciiore, 
virtu,  virtude,  and  virtute,  frode  and  fratide,  it  seemed  necessary  to 
enter  separately,  and  where  the  forms  were  not  consecutive  a  cross 
reference  was  desirable.  Where  the  difference  was  insignificant,  for 
example,  where  it  would  not  affect  metre  or  rhyme,  the  general  prin- 
ciple was  to  put  all  the  passages  quoted  under  one  heading,  but  the 
other  spelling  was  of  course  given  Vvith  a  reference  to  the  one  pre- 
ferred. Where,  on  the  other  hand,  the  difference  seemed  more 
significant,  each  form  was  entered  with  its  quotations,  and  reference 
was  made  from  each  one  to  the  other  or  others.  But  of  the  two 
possible  spellings  in  such  words  as  sforzare,  isforzare  the  second  has 
been  ignored,  all  such  cases  being  entered  only  under  the  one  with- 
out the  initial  /,  that  is,  under  s ;  and  for  verbs  compounded  with  dis 
there  is  no  reference  to  corresponding  forms  having  s  only  as  the 
prefix,  and  vice  versa.  Some  real  or  apparent  inconsistencies  will, 
it  is  hoped,  be  pardoned. 

5.  Comparison  of  Prose  and  Verse Of  the  total  number  of  cards 

33,094  (now  33,096,  for  two  of  the  cards  for  the  lately  added  sonnets 
are  cross-reference  cards  for  words  occurring  in  prose  only)  are  for 
the  prose  and  11,401  (now  11,562)  are  for  the  verse.  From  this  it 
appears  that  the  entries  for  prose  are  almost  three  times  as  many  as 
those  for  verse.  It  is  true  that  the  number  of  cards  is  not  the  same 
as  the  number  of  occurrences  of  all  the  words  entered,  but  this 
proportion  is  nearly  enough  correct  for  the  relation  of  prose  to  verse 
as  it  would  appear  on  the  average  on  the  printed  pages.  Individual 
pages  will,  however,  vary  considerably  from  this  average. 

The  number  of  words  and  word  forms  entered  as  headings  is  not 
in  this  proportion  when  we  compare  verse  and  prose.  Here  a  word 
of  caution  is  necessary.     None  of  the  following  figures  can  be  taken 


MINOR  ITALIAN  WORKS  7 

as  absolutely  exact ;  they  are  for  the  most  part  only  approximations, 
the  result  of  a  rough  count.  The  numerous  variant  forms  make  an 
exact  count  somewhat  difficult  ;  yet  the  numbers  here  given,  inexact 
as  they  are,  are  not  without  interest.  For  the  prose  the  total  number 
of  words  and  word  forms  entered  is  probably  somewhat  under  4000  ; 
for  the  verse  the  corresponding  number  is  over  2300 ;  that  is,  more 
than  half  as  many  as  in  the  prose.  It  would  seem  also  that  for  each 
word  of  the  prose  there  are  on  the  average  between  eight  and  nine 
occurrences,  while  for  each  word  of  the  verse  the  average  number  of 
occurrences  is  about  five.  This  is  not  surprising  when  we  remember 
how  much  less  verse  there  is  than  prose  to  be  compared. 

The  divergence  from  the  average  numbers  just  given  for  the 
occurrences  of  the  words  in  prose  and  verse  respectively  is  often  very 
great.  In  the  (approximately)  4000  entries  for  the  prose  the  number 
of  cards  (here  pretty  accurately  known)  for  individual  words  varies 
from  I  up  to  402  (for  cosd),  and  the  -word  parte  has  358  cards.  For 
the  verse  the  variations  are  not  so  great,  but  they  are  still  consider- 
able, a  minimum  of  i  contrasting  with  such  figures  as  175  (for  amore), 
135  (for  cuore).  Let  us  compare  prose  and  verse  for  these  and  a 
few  other  words  where  the  figures  can  be  given  pretty  exactly. 
Against  the  402  cards  for  cosa  in  prose  we  find  44  for  the  same 
word  in  verse,  and  the  358  in  prose  for  parte  contrast  even  more 
strongly  with  28  in  verse  ;  cuore  has  in  prose  46,  in  verse  130  (this 
case  is  remarkable  as  showing  a  much  higher  number  for  verse  than 
for  prose);  cominciare  has  in  prose  136,  in  verse  8;  ragione  has  in 
prose  212,  in  verse  17;  while  amore  shows  nearly  equal  numbers, 
—  185  in  prose,  175  in  verse. 

But  the  most  surprising  results  are  seen  when  the  words  repre- 
sented by  a  single  card,  and  therefore  in  most  cases  occurring  only 
once  in  prose  or  only  once  in  verse,  are  counted.  In  the  rough 
count  made  some  time  ago  proper  names,  Latin  words,  and  the  less 
important  variant  forms  of  words  were  omitted.  The  number  of 
prose  words  with  only  one  card  each  appeared  to  be  between  iioo 
and  1200,  or,  to  put  it  in  different  language,  more  than  a  fourth  of 
the  prose  words  seem  to  occur  only  once  each  in  prose.  For  the 
one-card  words  in  the  verse  a  similar  result  was  found.  Of  these 
there  are  about  900  (the  new  sonnets  previously  not  counted  adding 


8  THE  CONCORDANCE   TO  DANTE'S   WORKS 

some  40  to  the  old  list  and  causing  a  certain  number  of  others  to 
disappear).  A  comparison  with  the  prose  vocabulary  indicates  that 
over  550  of  these  —  considerably  more  than  half  —  do  not  occur  at 
all  in  the  prose.  This  suggested  another  count,  made  with  the  same 
omissions,  from  which  it  appeared  that  of  the  verse  words  with  more 
than  one  card  each  there  are  only  about  220  which  do  not  occur  at 
all  in  the  prose  ;  that  is,  the  proportion  of  such  words  is  much  smaller 
than  in  the  case  of  the  one-card  words. 

The  two  lists  of  words  in  verse  which  are  not  found  in  the  prose 
contain  a  certain  number  of  unusual  words  or  forms,  but  it  would  be 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  most  of  them  are  unusual ;  a  large  number 
are  common  enough  words,  and  the  nonappearance  of  these  770  or 
more  words  in  the  prose  is  due  in  great  part  to  the  nature  of  the 
subjects  treated  by  Dante  in  his  prose ;  he  simply  had  no  occasion 
to  use  them. 

It  is  obvious  that  further  comparisons  could  be  made  in  which  the 

vocabulary  of  the  Divina  Commedia  should  receive  its  proper  share 

of  attention.     One  might  also,  for  instance,  examine  the  words  which 

occur  more  or  less  frequently  in  the  prose  but  are  entirely  absent 

from  the  verse. 

E.  S.  SHELDON. 


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